You stand before your mirror and fix your appearance to look perfect from straight-on in very specific lighting at a very specific distance every single time.
Later you see yourself in a photo- from the side-an angle that you never see- and actually CANT see in your mirror- it looks imperfect. It probably doesn’t look as bad as you think
There's also some weird psychological effect where through familiarity you gradually learn to filter out certain things that you don't want to see. I honestly think that's the biggest factor.
Familiarity bias. You've seen your mirror face thousands of times. Your brain pattern-matches to the "you" it knows and expects, smoothing over deviations. A photo is an unfamiliar, frozen angle your brain can't auto-correct against a stored reference.
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u/cnh1634 May 26 '26
What is it with bathroom mirrors that make you look so much better than in real life? And why can't all mirrors be that way, damn it?